We Created a Neighborhood

SGES Students used the skills they learned in Part 1 of our clay exploration and created 3-D architectural structures by rolling natural clay out flat, laying a paper pattern down and cutting it out, then forming it into a three dimensional building, either a house or a castle tower.

As we allowed the structures to air-dry, students brainstormed about what story their building could tell: who lived there? Where was the building located? What colors, textures and details would the building have?

On January 29 and 31 students placed their dried structures onto a cardboard landscape and they were given a wide variety of paints to chose from to paint their building and setting. They were asked to imagine who lived in their building and what the landscape would look like in order to decide what colors would be needed to fit their theme.

Christian- A princess castle for Elizabeth. “I will need some sparkly things for the castle, and some pink things.” “Daniel Tiger will come visit Elizabeth first.”

Wyatt- A monster castle. “I definitely need scary things like spiders, rats, zombies and a ghost.” “I need a path of rocks.” “How can we make spider webs?”

Ellie- A Daniel Tiger castle. “There is a big piece of mud at the back of the house so no dragons can come in.” “If you paint creative, you can make something cool.”

Hayden- A spooky house. “There is going to be a moat so people who try to come in will fall into the water.” “I’m going to do it [paint] slowly like an artist does.”

Norah- A haunted house. “Many characters will live here in this house, and they are going to be scary. One will have three faces on three heads, but only one eye.”

Vidya- A strawberry house. “I will need red for the strawberries, yellow for the seeds, and green for the leaves.”

Hana- My house, but spooky. “My mom, my dad, me and my kitty are going to live in this house, but skeletons and witches are too.”

Katie- A witch, skeleton house. “When Daniel Tiger comes to my house he is going to be captured.”

Addy- A scary house on a pretty island. “I just want to mix all the colors together, because that is the color for an island.”

Myla- A strawberry lives in my castle. They will have fun.

Lia- A princes lives in my castle.

Ezra- A strawberry lives in my castle too. They will probably dance.

Kyle- A Minecraft man lives in my castle- it’s Steve. They will play Minecraft.

Sai- A princess and dragon live in mine.

Levi- A dinosaur with purple water around it.

Nicholas- A ninja castle with black water around it.

The prekindergartners decided that their structures could tell stories, then Ellie suggested that Daniel Tiger could visit all the houses. Christian thought that the story could go from one house to another house to another, with each house having a character that sees Daniel Tiger. Wyatt thought that stuff could happen at each house. We thought maybe a collaborative story or a play might stem from this art project and we’d like to try and explore that.

On February 7th students used the mixed media items they requested and glued them to their structures and the surrounding landscape. The finished projects will be on display at our Valentines Party on Thursday Feb 14th at 11:00 am and students can bring home their creations that day. They are so proud of their work and discovering how things can go from two-dimensional to three-dimensional and how architecture can tell a story!

Painting our structures and landscapes

Adding mixed media details to our structures and landscapes

Writing our group story about our neighborhood with Ms. Page

Students seeing their projects on display for the first time

Here are the stories students created around the neighborhoods their structures formed:

The Castles and Houses on the Beautiful Land

Prekindergarten Group Story based on Clay Structures 2/12/19

This is a story about a neighborhood full of castles and
houses. It was almost always sunny and in a beautiful land surrounded by water.
There were boats to row around in.

All of the neighbors grew vegetables in a big garden in
the middle. They took turns planting vegetables and flowers, watering the
garden, and pulling weeds.

They liked going to the park to see the princess who
played there. They all liked to spin around until they got dizzy and fell down.

The school was in a strawberry house with a teacher who
was a strawberry! She taught the kids about plants and gardening.

For fun the friends liked to go around and visit spooky
houses and castles in the neighborhood and birthdays were spent there,
celebrating with monsters, witches and ghosts.

Although it was almost always sunny, the friends were
happy even if it rained. They carried umbrellas and splashed around in the
puddles together!

Everyone who lived in the beautiful land were friends.

Daniel Tiger lived in Ellie’s castle.

Daniel Tiger lived in Addy’s house.

The Owl lived in Hayden’s house.

The Cat lived in Norah’s castle.

Owlette lived in Christian’s castle.

The Strawberry lived in Vidya’s house.

The Monster lived in Wyatt’s castle.

The Ghost and Witch lived in Katie’s house.

The Ghost lived in Hana’s house.

One day something happened in the beautiful land- all the
vegetables in the garden disappeared! No one knew where they went or who took
them.

This made all the neighbors sad and hungry. Everyone had
to go back to their house and then go buy more food at the store. BUT—-the
store didn’t wash the vegetables so all the friends got germs and got sick.

While everyone was sick in their house, some bad guys came
down the street, and they weren’t there to help- they had stolen the
vegetables!

Owlette flew above the scene and tried to help find the
bad guys from up in the air because she is an owl and can fly.

Owl didn’t have any toothbrushes so he had to brush his
teeth on the ground on his pants.

Cat was hungry- she didn’t have any food or vegetables
and cried and cried.

One Daniel Tiger tried hiding in his castle so no one
would see him and he would be safe forever.

The other Daniel Tiger escaped by taking the Strawberry
land boat on the water to escape the fire that was on the land.

The Ghosts and the Witch tried to help catch the bad guys
because sometimes they are nice, but sometimes they are mean.

FINALLY the police came to the rescue. They loaded the
villains into cars and boats and floated them to jail. But then—the police put the Witch and the Ghosts
in jail too!

The Monster heard about it and came and smashed the jail
to pieces so the Witch and Ghosts could get out of jail— but the Monster left
the bad guys in there.

Then the Strawberry got all sad because Monster accidently
broke her house too, so she didn’t have a place to live. Her friends made her
another house.

The friends all got well, came out of their houses and
castles, and worked together in the garden to grow more vegetables with seeds.
And this time, they didn’t have any germs. They lived happily ever after
forever.

The End

The Castle Neighborhood

Preschool Group Story based on Clay Structures 2/12/19

This is a story about a neighborhood of castles here in
Portland.

Everyone who lived in the castles were friends. The friends
were:

The Elephant who lived in Levi’s castle.

The Fairy Princess who lived in Sai’s castle.

Max who lived in his own castle.

The Strawberry who lived in Myla’s castle.

Rapunzel the Princess who lived in Lia’s castle.

The Strawberry who lived in Ezra’s castle.

Princess Sophia who lived in Rowen’s castle.

The Ninja who lived in Nicholas’ castle.

Steve the Minecraft Man who lived in Kyle’s castle.

In this place the weather was almost always sunny, but
the land around the neighborhood was dark. Sometimes it was hard to see!

There was a big garden in the middle of the neighborhood and
the friends worked together to grow strawberries.

There was a park and everyone liked to drive there and park
in the parking lot.

The school in the neighborhood was wet. The kids swam
with fishies and played with seals for recess.

For fun the friends liked to play, by running, jumping,
and twirling around.

After they played they like to sit down and drink hot
chocolate and eat cookies.

When they celebrated birthdays they made something
special, wrapped it up and gave it as a gift.

Everyone was happy, even when angels surprised them.

Then one day in the neighborhood, the sky got dark, the
clouds came, and it started raining strawberries!

No one knew what to do. If they went outside, everyone
would get all dirty with strawberries. They would fall on the heads and go-
squish! There was strawberry juice all over the ground.

The friends worked together to try and stop the rain.
They covered their heads with umbrellas. They shook their fists at the sky.
They called the police. Nothing worked. They didn’t know what to do.

Then suddenly- the sun came out! The sun is very hot and
the heat melted all the strawberry rain. The sun dried all the strawberry juice
off the driveway and roads.

The friends were so happy the strawberry rain had stopped
that they all did a strawberry celebration dance!

They lived happily ever after with strawberries in their
garden- NOT falling out of the sky!